Old Irish, British and European Foxes -a few words

 I have gone into this before but wanted to emphasise why we are interested )very interested) in getting to see in photos at least, Old European fox taxidermy. Once the land bridge to Continental Europe was flooded the wildlife once widespread across the Continent was trapped here and needed to adapt.  Once the land bridge between Britain and Ireland flooded the wildlife in Ireland was trapped and needed to adapt to the local environment to survive.

The fact that a species is isolated and needs to adapt can often be used to cite it as a sub-species.  If that applied then the Old foxes in Ireland would have been a sub-species as would those in Britain. 

Below is a map showing Britain, Ireland, and parts of today"s continental Europe with the lost world of Doggerland in between. Map shows estimated sea levels over the last 18,000 years.  The dark green shows land above sea level 7000 BC, lighter green shows land above sea level 8000 BC, and the lightest shade of green shows land above sea level 16,000 BC.

Image @NatGeo

There are Medieval and other period illustrations showing Old fox types but someone will always say "That's just an old illo" and they would be right. You can also counter by asking why the "experts" have not noticed all of this and checked. But if you look at the example of two British Old Mountain fox types below take in all the non Red fox features.
(c)2025 British Fox and Wild Canid Study

(c)2025 British Fox and Wild Canid Study

There are Medieval and other period illustrations showing Old fox types but someone will always say "That's just an old illo" and they would be right. You can also counter by asking why the "experts" have not noticed all of this and checked. But if you look at the example of two British Old Mountain fox types below take in all the non Red fox features.

Then compare the above to a taxidermy from Czechia in the 19th century.

Hopefully you can see the similarities. For this reason, to gather far more in the way of taxidermy examples even if only photographic, we ask anyone who works at a Museum in Europe from Scandinavia down to Spain to please -PLEASE- check collections and any old fox reference books and get in touch.

DNA would be a great asset but to date no one has been interested. We need to rediscover and educate on the wildlife we have lost and which can never be returned as well as the wildlife that moved in and took over. We have lost far too many species and they are forgotten through dogma.